Battling The Game Of 'International Telephone'Battling The Game Of 'International Telephone'

Rapid collaboration between workers is increasingly critical in tough economic times, but when those employees are located around the globe, language barriers and cultural differences can hinder communication and diminish a company's competitive edge. Parametric Technology Corp. is tapping WorldServer 5.0, globalization software from Idiom Corp., to more efficiently manage international Web content and improve corporate communications.

The $1 billion Needham, Mass., company, which provides Web-based product development applications to clients such as consulting firm Accenture, Airbus Industries, and John Deere, realized improved international support was vital as their clients, and clients' partners, suppliers, contractors, manufacturers, and other members of the product lifecycle, are increasingly found across the globe. "Previously, we operated as a U.S. company with global subsidiaries," says Dan Starr, Parametric VP of E-business. But with nearly 60% of their customer base outside North America, he says, "That doesn't cut it anymore." Right now, Starr estimates that 60% of its 19 local-language Parametric Web sites are six to nine months out of date. "It gets to the point that customers are using new products but there's no information on the local site," he says. "We hope talking to them in the local languages will help substantially with customer satisfaction and loyalty." WorldServer uses established business rules and tools, such as translation memory. When content is altered on a centralized Web site, WorldServer automatically translates the language into multiple localized Web sites.

Parametric plans to extend WorldServer's capabilities farther, using the Java 2 Enterprise Edition application to manage the globalization of its technical support content, marketing documents, and internal communication. "We've seen the same business document among the sales folks be translated 10 times and get a different message each time," says Starr. "Now it will be on a much more consistent and efficient basis."

"In the content-management market, we are seeing the increasing trend of content management extending from Web content to documents usually storied in an offline world," says Forrester Research analyst Nick Wilkoff. Despite the slow market for IT investment, companies are still investing in content management. "Content has ballooned out of control, with inadequate homegrown systems," says Wilkoff. "One requirement we are seeing is the support for global content."

"Our business goal is to act like a global company. We couldn't do that without adding six or seven Web developers just to manage the content on our international sites," says Starr. "With WorldServer, we only need to hire one--and that's a pretty strong ROI."